The Art of War
by General Obi-Wan
Summary: Obi-Wan practices the arts of war, diplomacy and the Monian lute as arms dealers and Jedi collide over the future of an interdicted planet.
1. Default Chapter

**_There is a plant in the western regions called the blackberry lily. Its stem is four inches long, but because it grows atop tall mountains, it looks down into a thousand-foot abyss. -_ Sun Tzu**

Fine white sand swept over the floor and the shoots of a small sturdy grass rose up here and there. The guests sat or lounged, murmuring to one another as they ritually passed the meal and drink bowls from hand to hand. Her Most Revered Highness, the Pure Florinate, smiled at the success of her Coruscant coming-out party and in so doing released pollen and a pleasing odor from her buds.

"I believe, General Kenobi, that you know Chairman Junker of the Marcite Arms Consortium," she said, turning to her two nearest guests.  
Obi-Wan smiled pleasantly.  
"By reputation, Highness."  
Junker sneered. His rock-hewn features and grey-flecked hair gave his face a hardened appearance which seemed to make all pretense at social nicety absurd.  
"General Kenobi and I are both artists in the same medium. In our field, it is necessarily by reputation that we are known."  
He grinned, exposing teeth that any self-respecting patrician would have had replaced long ago.

The High Florinate was disconcerted by Junker's tone but remained unsure of his meaning.  
"And what art do you practice, Chairman?"  
General Kenobi answered for him, eyes only visible over the rim of a waterbowl. "War."

Junker nodded. "It is a broad canvas."  
"And one which we approach differently."  
The High Florinate shifted uncomfortably. Several of her petals closed hesitantly.

Obi-Wan passed the bowl of sweet-water to Junker, who received it with the appropriate words of thanks.  
"Indeed, there seems to be a movement in our community," the Jedi began jovially, "towards the acceptance of the 'Ready-made.' I prefer the older hand-turned approach. It seems to me when we feel the artist's own presence in the work, it is rendered somehow...nobler. I wonder what thoughts Chairman Junker might have on the subject."  
The Chairman bristled, "Are you implying that I won't get my hands dirty?"  
Obi-Wan looked on Junker affably, as if no answer was required.

"My friend," whispered the High Florinate, holding one green-tinged hand placatingly towards Junker, "have you not recently returned from a trip to the Rim? It must have been very exciting. Pray, entertain us with your observations."  
Junker grunted at this ploy to diffuse the confrontation but allowed himself to be drawn out. He gave the company two anecdotes highlighting the eccentricities and rusticism of those inhabitants of the Outer Rim as were sure to appeal to the sophisticated and cosmopolitan of the galactic capital.

"'Wouldn't it be easier if you got _into_ the pod?' I asked him. 'Mercy, yes. But then who would watch the Tentadrulla!'"  
As the laughter died down, Junker's eyes sought out the Jedi's.  
"Of course, my travels were a walk in the Arborium compared with General Kenobi's. Why, everywhere he goes there seems to be a catastrophe."

Obi-Wan looked down into the dessert bowl that had just come his way and said nothing.  
"What do you mean?" asked a young socialite, who, this being her third party of the evening, was already feeling the effects of the seed-wine.  
"Only that poor General Kenobi's visits are invariably occasioned by some calamity. Remember that union strike on the manufacturing world of Akoalas? The one that was holding up production on the Republic's latest star cruiser design? Master Kenobi hadn't been there two days before the ringleaders were found decapitated in their boardroom. The murderers were never captured."  
Obi-Wan coughed quietly and dabbed his mouth with a moss-napkin.  
"Or Dentoponie-9? That religious movement. Order of the Sons of Light, or whatnot. Claimed they were immersed in the Force, a nonviolent alternative to the Jedi. Well," Junker chuckled unpleasantly, "they must have had some power - they slaughtered each other, if reports are true. Used Force powers to destroy themselves. Only left traces behind." He addressed Obi-Wan directly. "You were there vacationing, Master Kenobi. Perhaps you can shed some light on their gruesome demise."

"Are you not afraid, Chairman Junker, that this chain of unfortunate occurrences might follow me here? I would loathe to be thought the cause, no matter how remote, of any further disappearances."  
Junker licked his lips. "I promise you, Master Jedi, I have no intention of disappearing."

"General Kenobi," interrupted the High Florinate in an over-bright voice, "I am told that you are also a master of the Monian lute. Is this so?"  
"But a humble student, Highness," Obi-Wan bowed.  
"I beg you will give us a demonstration."

The lute was quickly presented to Obi-Wan and as he tuned its pegs a silence stole over the room.  
He struck softly with his plectrum, alternating between the nine strings as his hand slid over the instrument's fretless neck.

_I can't understand it, why you want to hurt me.  
After all the things I've done for you.  
I buy you champagne and roses, put diamonds on your finger -  
Diamonds on your finger -  
Still, you hang out all night.  
What am I to do?  
My girl wants to party all the time.  
Party all the time.  
Party all the time.  
She parties all the time - party all the time.  
She likes to party all the time - party all the time.  
Party all the time. _

Obi-Wan winked imperceptibly to the High Florinate, who regarded him with dark and thoughtful eyes. Her supple limbs stretched gracefully over the soft white sand.

Of all his studies: diplomacy, the art of war, the Monian lute, it was xenobiology that was just then at the top of his mind.


	2. In General

**_In general, as for the armies you want to strike, the cities you want to attack, and the men you want to assassinate, you must first know the names of the defensive commander, his assistants, staff, door guards, and attendants. You must have our spies search out and learn them all. - _Sun Tzu**

The Coruscant sky was drawing nearer the boundary between deep night and early morning. Yoda waited in his chambers. The diminutive master's nose itched. He scratched it. Obi-Wan entered, bowing.  
"Late you are."  
"I apologize, Master Yoda. I had difficulties disentangling myself from certain parties." Obi-Wan rubbed his wrist, where the Pure Florinate's vine tendrils had ensnared him. _Some species are insatiable_, he decided.

"Matters not. Pleasant you smell. Some cologne you are wearing?"  
"No, Master. I have but paused to sniff a flower and found myself wet with its dew."  
Yoda yawned at this cryptic response.  
"Your mission?"  
"Our sources are correct. Chairman Junker is definitely planning something - what it might be and whether it has the full support of Marcite Arms, I cannot tell."

Yoda observed Obi-Wan through half-closed eyes, then nodded for him to continue.  
"I baited him, as you instructed, and he rose to it. He is consumed by a powerful combination of pride and rage. I believe if I offered him a more direct challenge he could not help but accept."  
"Our last resort the challenge will be. So much gossip in the capital. Know what he plans we must. Thoroughly investigate this you will."  
Yoda looked to the window.  
"Dawn it will be soon."

"I shall go at once." Bowing again, Obi-Wan turned to leave.  
"Master Kenobi."  
"Yes, Master Yoda."  
"Fear not the dew of the flower, but its thorn. This you will remember."  
Yoda closed his eyes and sank into a meditative nap.

The perimeter of the Marcite Arms Consortium compound was peaceful. It was generally this way in the hours before dawn.  
The heart of the security machine observed and recorded as security teams and droids made their silent circuits along preordained paths. The Machine often used these times to slip into an almost trancelike state akin to dreaming.  
Even at this extreme level of cybernization the central organic components needed time to rest and contemplate. And so the Machine dreamt, as it always did, of farms on far-off worlds, limited water supplies, animal husbandry, crop rotation and fertilizer prices.

It was almost a nanosecond before the disappearance of a security drone pushed itself up through this revelry and was acknowledged, questioned, verified and certified in countless permutations thereby automatically raising the compound's defense level to a heightened Yellow.  
The Machine then watched with some distress as a squad of security men hurrying toward the drone's last known location, inexplicably took a wrong turning and marched double-time in the opposite direction.  
Quickly, the Machine issued counter-orders in several languages, fired off a brief but pointed report to the night's duty officer and proceeded to make back-up and hard copies of all related files should any of these actions result in the termination of contract for one of Marcite Arms' employees.

The security level had reached Orange when another surveillance droid caught sight of a figure dressed in a dark blue modified ARC trooper uniform an instant before it malfunctioned and went permanently off-line. The intruder's suit obviously incorporated some stealth technology as it failed to show up on any of the systems sensor arrays. The Machine reluctantly raised the security level to Red, the first time this had occurred in the compound's history.

Rapidly the trail of deactivated droids, confused guards and inexplicably deactivated forcefields grew, driving, it seemed, in a direct path towards the most secure sublevel of the compound - the chairman's personal archives.

The Machine opened a new channel between itself and an offsite terminal. After a series of cross-encrypted passwords and counterchecks it received permission to move to its final security threat level procedure. It closed its eyes...

Life began to trickle into the maimed and ravaged body that had been Shiria Sunwo. Her desiccated lips trembled in the tank of preservative broth that had been her body's home for over three decades. The wetware that honeycombed her head directed her thoughts down a dark corridor along a holographic blueprint. Images of a destroyed security drone caught her attention. A door opened with a hiss. She followed a shadowy figure down into the turbolift.  
The more energy the system diverted into Shiria's body, the clearer her imaginings of the intruder became. He was a man. Average height. Athletic build.  
At the same time she found herself dreaming again, or more accurately remembering - recalling a life in the Jedi Temple, her failure to be taken as a Padawn, her shameful exile to the farming world of Probstion, the abduction, the torture, the mangling of her body and the cybernetic slavery which was now her world.  
Her senses, the senses of a Jedi reached out, bloomed and took in everything at once - she recognized the intruder, she recognized herself.

The intruder, with the instincts of a predatory animal froze, aware that he had been observed he raised a gloved hand - and the Security Machine's mind, the fallen Jedi Shiria Sunwo, went off-line, permanently.

One final word flickered across Chairman Junker's screen as he watched the final transmission from the compound. **Jedi**.


End file.
